Dark Universe
by JazzT
Summary: Dark Universe - Pt.1 The Doctor, Sam and Fitz are just minding their own business...
1. When accidents happen

Blackness, white lines, monsters, death. No escape, fear, something reaching out toward her. Gut wrenching terror...

Screaming at the top of her lungs, eyes wide open, Cassandra sat bolt upright in her bed. Panting hard, she pulled at the sweat-soaked sheets that clung to her legs and swung them from the bunk. Thuds of running boots echoed down the corridor as Neelam ran into view. "Are you alright?" He whispered, trying not to suck down a lungful of air himself. She nodded absently, the adrenaline driven horror of the nightmare still fresh in her mind. "Another nightmare?" Neelam sat down on the bed beside her, and drew her close. "It'll all be over in a few hours. This will end the grip of tyranny he has held us in for so long." 'He' was president Thompson. Head of the colony government, dictator, and twisted law all rolled into one. "I. I have a really bad feeling about this Neelam. Something bad is going to happen, and its all going to be our fault. I Just know it." He just shook his head. "Look its just last run jitters, that's all. You're not the only one who's nervous you know." Neelam stood, and walked to the door. "Now get some sleep. We need you pin-sharp tomorrow. If you don't do your part properly, then we may all die." His boots echoed hollowly up the corridor as he walked away.

The morning was bright, clear skied and crisp. Light frost covered the autumn ground, and birds fluttered from tree to tree. The feeling of impending doom was still clinging to Cassandra as she swiped her bogus security card through the train's reader. The doors opened, and she hauled her two bags through and sat down. The first was a simple handbag, containing general woman things and a small packed breakfast. She pulled the greaseproof wrapping from the Salqar nut butter sandwich, and took a big bite. Munching the bittersweet sandwich, she pulled a small flask of sarfé from he bag and pressed the reheat button. Thirty seconds later it beeped, and she tentatively sipped at the hot drink. As she was drinking, a man in a dark suit sat down beside her and started to read a disposable news pad. Nervously, she quickly prodded the briefcase containing the equivalent of a sixty-pound bomb, out of his way. It wasn't going to go off, but, just in case... She smiled at the man, and he nodded back in acknowledgement. A wan smile spread thinly across his lips. 

She didn't realise her hands were twitching until the man said something. "Um, excuse me. Are you alright?" he said, laying his compact reader in his lap. "Oh! Er, yes, yes I'm fine. Nervous disorder. First day at work." He grinned. "I know that feeling." He picked up his reader. "Where are you working for such first day nerves?" This wasn't going to plan, she thought frantically. If I tell him I work at the lab can I risk the chance that he works there too? "Is it at the new lab?" He said nonchalantly. "I heard they were having a presidential visit today. Better them than me. I'm glad I don't work there." Cassandra almost gasped with relief. She nodded dumbly, desperately trying to control her breathing. Was she sweating? "No wonder you're twitching all over the place, I for one wouldn't want to be within a mile of that man. You never know when the terrorists might strike." He was making it really hard. She was trying not to laugh hysterically as the man whittered on about terrorists bombing this, and that, killing innocent people in the name of freedom. A tear trickled down her face from the strain of keeping her face straight. I am a professional. She thought desperately. The man had stopped and was looking at her with sympathy. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you." Upset me? What was he jabbering about now? She wiped the tears from her face. "No. That's alright." Her voice sounded cracked and desperate as she fought back the wracking sobs of laughter. "Well this is my stop." He said as he rose from the chair. "Yours is the next one, so make sure you remember to get off." He put one hand on her shoulder. "Remember the good the president has brought us, not the lives those terrorists have taken away." With that he turned and left her alone in the carriage. As the train moved away, she reached down and clutched the bomb to her, tears streaming down her face. This was going to kill more innocents. People in the wrong place at the wrong time, and she was laughing so hard the tears wouldn't stop. They just wouldn't stop.

The remainder of the journey took another twenty minutes, as the accelerator lab was well outside of town. The train line had been extended especially to ferry scientists back and forth between the lab and the university but the pristine white hadn't lasted long. The constant bombardment of students and some of their less palatable habits had left the train with a lived in feel. Cassandra swiped her card through the security reader, and left the train. The station was more antiseptic than the train. Brilliant white walls and white-light fluorescent tubes were everywhere, along with wide-open spaces. Feeling vulnerable and exposed, she walked across the station. Her brisk, business heels clicking and echoing in the hall. It was silent. She hadn't been expecting this; it was like intruding on someone deathbed. "Halt! Identification." She jumped, and spun round to see a young soldier standing calmly behind her. "Er, sorry miss. Didn't mean to scare you. I nee to see your ID?" She took a deep breath and smiled as she pulled the card from her purse. "You scared the living daylights out of me!" She handed over the card, and held her breath as he ran it through the portable security check. It felt like she wasn't breathing at all when he finally handed the card back to her. "Thank you miss Chalmers. Hell of a day to start work." She smiled and let out a long, heartfelt sigh of relief. "Mind how you go miss." He said as he walked away. "We've had a tip-off that one of the terrorist groups would make an attempt here today." She froze, heart pounding in her chest. There was a leak! Someone had informed the government! What should she do? Run? Call the abort? The soldier stopped and turned. "Damn, nearly forgot. Sorry miss, but I need to run the wand over you." He took what looked like a slim chrome pipe from the holster on his belt and advanced towards her. The bomb, he was going to find the bomb! The soldier quickly ran the wand over her front and down her back. It beeped once. Steady girl, steady. The soldier frowned. "Er, may I ask what you do?" She had to think of something believable, plausible, and real. The cover story wasn't going to fit was it? What has he found? Has he detected the explosives? "Um," She glanced down at her shoes, noting with insane delight the scuffmark on her right shoe. "I deal mainly with isotopes, which is why I'm at the accelerator today. But I also teach chemistry. Why? You haven't detected an explosive on me have you?" He examined the wand, and nodded. "Only a trace, but I'm going to have to ask you to come with me." No! This can't be happening! "Its probably some remnants from an experiment last week. Check my hands." She hadn't washed them properly. She knew now, Neelam was always going on at her about not cleaning properly after handling explosives. She held out her hands, as the soldier waved his wand over them. The detector beeped once more. "Ok, but try and clean yourself up next time miss." She gave a nervous laugh and walked to the elevator. 

10:04am Cassandra strode confidently into the lab cafeteria having successfully negotiated two more guards and a physics student trying it on with the new girl in town. Thirty minutes, she told herself, all over in thirty minutes. She bought a mug of sarfé and cake. She was beginning to relax now. The adrenaline driven morning was coming to a close. She pulled out a physics journal, and made a show of browsing through it. She glanced at her watch again, and got up. Picking up the bomb, she placed it on the chair as she stuffed the journal back in her purse."Tut, tut. I thought you'd have better respect for such an eminent journal." She froze. Why was this happening? Problem after problem had walked into her this morning. What was she doing wrong? Had someone stuck an 'I am a terrorist' sign on her back? "Cassie? Aren't you even going to say hello?" She turned. Professor Hargreaves stood behind her wearing his archetypal tweed suit and half-moon glasses. "Professor!" She threw her arms around him and hugged. "How are you? I didn't know you were working here!" He grinned as she let go. "I started last month. Today's the first day of the new accelerator's life. So, my dear." He took her by the arm. "What's my favourite physics student been up to?" 

Fitz was bored. He'd tried playing some of Sam's computer games, but couldn't get on with them. Three hours of wandering amongst the TARDIS library stacks had just made him irritable, footsore, hungry and thirsty. He'd given up wandering the TARDIS corridors looking for the occasional interesting room long ago, and now he was sitting in the, for better words, conservatory, channel hopping on the TARDIS's equivalent of TV. Sam had introduced him to the wonders of the remote control the last time they'd been on Earth, and he'd been addicted to it ever since; although it wasn't doing him much good today. "Sixteen billion channels, and nothing on." He sighed, and paused on local news broadcast about some president visiting some physics lab. The Doctor was sitting in his armchair reading, Sam was in the TARDIS gymnasium keeping fit and Fitz was still bored out of his brain. "I hope something happens soon." He mumbled, and fought the impulse to carry on channel hopping.

"Here's my baby Cassandra. The I.R.A.S. detector. We're going to be able to see farther into the structure of the universe than ever before." He patted the drum-like concatenation of instruments around the exit of the accelerator as if it were a pet. "Professor, do you mind if I dump this somewhere?" She gestured with the suitcase. "Oh, my dear I'm sorry I should have thought before dragging you out here. Put it down over there, no-one will disturb it here." Perfect. The bomb had just been designed to blow a hole in the wall to get the rest of the team in. This was about as close as she was going to get to the president without hurting innocents. She thankfully tucked the case under the professor's detector. "We're using Uranium in the accelerator today and passing the nuclei through a stabilised Plutonium rich cloud. We're hoping to knock loose a string from the firmament. You're welcome to watch if you'd like?" He waggled his bushy eyebrows at her. Smiling, Cassandra nodded. "Wonderful! We have thirty minutes. I'll drive us back." He hopped onto the little electric cart, and turned it on. She looked at him. "I've never seen you so excited. Do you really think you can do it?" He nodded, as he pushed down on the accelerator. "Absolutely! Imagine the possibilities! We could unravel cosmic strings straight out of the substrate of the universe! We would finally have all the unlimited power we need by harnessing their energy. We could use them for terrestrial and space propulsion. We are on the virge of a whole new era of technology! So yes, I am a little excited. The accelerator's been powering up since last night. We're just waiting to push the button."He gave her a huge grin, as the little cart trundled alongside the Vacuum tube. Leaving Cassandra's bomb waiting for its activation signal. It's tiny, weak, transmitter beeped almost plaintively as it broadcast its location for the rest of the assassination team.

Fitz was bored no longer. The presidential visit he had been watching on the local television had turned out more interesting than previously thought. It appeared that most people thought the president was a tyrant. The news report showed scenes of protestors being viciously attacked by armed police; petrol bombs had been thrown, people chaining themselves to fences. There'd even been a streaker! Although Fitz had to admit that while he wasn't the foremost expert on alien anatomy, he was pretty sure that he wasn't supposed to see what he had seen. Not even the BBC showed things like this! At least not in is day anyway. The list of things the news crew had been reporting seems endless! Bomb threats, assassination attempts, death threats, you name it. Fitz had to admit though; even under that much public pressure the man should have left office long ago. The fact that he was clinging to power like a wolverine with its jaws clamped over your arm, implied that there was just slightly more than an element of truth to the accusations. He was half inclined to disturb the Doctor's reading, and bring him over to watch. The news crew obviously had some kind of dispensation because they were following the president around. The latest pictures were inside a tiny control room, packed with instrument and monitors. The president was shaking hands with someone, an elderly professor type figure. Behind him stood a very nervous looking, and stunningly beautiful, young redhead. The guards were also eyeing her up, but in a suspicious way. Fitz clicked; she wasn't supposed to be there! Two guards had flanked her, and were practically holding her arms. This was getting good, thought Fitz as he leaned forward on his chair. You could feel the tension from here, and he was light years away! The old man was totally oblivious of the storm brewing behind him as he patiently explained what they were planning to use the accelerator for to the president. Questions popped out of the reporter, and the president's aids as the balding man stood there nodding. Occasionally he glanced at the woman, an almost sly look on his face as the tension slowly built.

Neelam glanced at the locator. A small red dot pulsed rhythmically on the display. Perfect, he knew she wouldn't let them down. The small wireframe map showed a five hundred yard dash to the accelerator control room, and the president. He spat; just the thought of the man brought the taste of bile to his mouth. He started at a tap on the shoulder. He was as jumpy as Cassie had been earlier that morning! Snarling, he turned. "What?" Jaxxson was standing behind him holding a portable holovision. "Er, I think you should see the live report." He proffered the tiny unit. Neelam fingered the power button and looked into the eyes of the president. "So? So what?" Jaxxson pointed to just behind the scientist who had started rambling about the structure of the universe and his grand experiment. "Er, isn't that Cassandra?" Neelam frowned, and spun the display rotate wheel on the side of the unit. Slowly the little room full of people rotated and he got a good look at the redheaded woman in the business suit. The woman flanked by three burly presidential guards. A woman called Cassandra; looking very, very frightened. "Damn! She might blow the whole thing!" He jumped up, and quietly signalled to the rest of the team. "Schedule's changed." He hissed. "We're moving. Now!"

Cassandra was terrified. The two security guards quietly standing next to her was unsettling, but the one behind had the muzzle of a gun stabbing into the small of her back and a huge paw of a hand on her left shoulder. From the front it probably didn't look too bad, but from where she was standing it couldn't get any worse! She'd been surprised when the first guard walked in, and horrified when the president and a holo-crew pushed in behind him. Professor Hargreaves hadn't mentioned that it was his experiment the President was going to be at. The holo crew were the icing on the cake, though. She was on public view for all to see! An aid stepped forward and led the president to a large red button. "Mr president. If you'd be so kind as to activate the experiment for professor Hargreaves?" The president nodded, and reached forward.

The assassination team were inside the compound. Three guards lay dead at their feet as they prepared to make the dash across to the hole that was about to appear in the wall. Neelam took the remote for the bomb from his pocket and flipped back the clear plastic cover. He rested his thumb over the exposed button as they waited for a small troop of guards to disappear around the edge of the accelerator building. 

Fitz was literally on the edge of his seat. The woman looked ready to bolt, and by the look of the guards they weren't going to have that. Sam had walked into the control room, brushing a towel across her hair as she dried it. The Doctor was still reading, so she headed over to see Fitz. "What'cha watching?" Fitz quickly grabbed the remote. "TV, some nasty president opening a big physics experiment. Except I think they've just closely avoided an assassination attempt." Sam sat down next to him, still rubbing her hair vigorously. "Really? Why would they want to kill him?" Fitz was beginning to find it hard to keep his concentration focused. "Well he's a bit like Hitler. Doesn't like being talked down to." Sam bunched the blue and white striped towel onto her lap. "So what's that he's doing now?" She said and quickly yanked the control from his hand. "Isn't there anything else on?" Sam's finger reached for the next channel.

Two electronic signals flashed to their destinations within fractions of a second of one another. As the explosion compressed the cloud of plutonium atoms within the I.R.A.S. detector, the stream of super heavy uranium atoms travelling at almost the speed of light, left the accelerator itself and poured into the testing vacuum tube. Both Plutonium and Uranium atoms splintered into their component particles. Quarks and Gluons formed a plasma cloud within the experiment chamber, as the last Uranium atom struck. Energy blew outwards into the cloud of particles, smashing them together and deep within I.R.A.S. a single particle of strange matter was born.

The TARDIS screamed as the temporal vortex was sucked into a lower energy state. Within, columns smashed to the rippling floor, Fitz, Sam and the Doctor were thrown around as a hurricane wind blew threw the console room. The huge, cast ironwork surrounding the console itself, buckled as if being crushed under a tremendous weight, candles guttered out and silence descended in the absolute blackness. A single peal of the cloister bell echoed eerily down the corridors of the dead TARDIS. "I'll keep my mouth shut next time." Mumbled Fitz as he tried not to move. His whole body felt bruised and battered. Probably because he'd first bounced off the indestructible window behind him in the atrium, which had smashed, and then the mangled remains of the console's struts. He opened his eyes, but it didn't make much difference from when they were closed. He decided to try cliché number one. "Owww!" Quickly followed up by cliché number three. "What happened?" A female moan came from nearby. "Well that's the first time that's happened." Groaned Sam, as she propped herself up on a bruised arm. Deep in the darkness a match flared into life, showing the Doctor's face. A large cut on his forehead had bled profusely and his left eye was beginning to blacken. "Is everyone alright? Anything broken?" The match rose into the air, and the little circle of light showed some of the devastated console room. Sam and Fitz groaned in unison. "I thought you said that the insides of the TARDIS couldn't be damaged by something on the outside." Said Fitz, as he shakily got to his feet. The Doctor had wandered over to the console, and was rummaging around the toolkit, which he had pulled from its compartment. "Technically that is true, realistically the internal dimensions are still physically connected to the external shell. Fortunately for us this is a type forty TARDIS and not a type thirty. The type thirty's required a constant power source to maintain the internal dimensions. They were abandoned after a number of rather nasty accidents involving power failures." He triumphantly pulled a small box from the toolkit, and pulled four small legs from it. "Portable lighting unit. Close your eyes this will be bright." The tiny box emitted a loud screech and a brilliant white globe appeared in the air above it illuminating the remains of the console room. "Oh dear." He said, picking up a piece of the shattered remains of the time rotor. Sam limped over to the Doctor. He stood there holding the piece of blue crystal like a small child whose favourite toy had been broken. "Were we attacked Doctor?" He shook his head. "No Sam, to cause something like this requires vast amounts of energy. I'm not even sure the Timelords could willingly destroy a TARDIS." He looked at her. "They are usually just allowed to die when their time comes." He stroked a twisted strut lovingly. "I can't hear her Sam. I can't hear her singing. She won't answer me." He sounded as if he was going to burst into tears. Fitz clambered from the wreckage, and perched himself precariously on a flattened piece of ironwork. "Well if we weren't attacked, what happened?" The Doctor had been staring into space, when suddenly he grinned and breathed a sigh of relief. "She's busy." He looked at the wrecked console. " We need to get to the backup control room. If we're lucky we may be able to salvage some sensor readings. Come on!" He scrambled over the twisted console, and headed of into the darkness holding an everlasting match up high.

The TARDIS corridors were twisted and melted into a strange, non Euclidean morass. Rooms were fused together; Fitz saw the remains of his bed mixed with the Doctors huge steam coffee machine. It was definitely something he rather forgot. Especially if he'd gone to bed instead of watching TV, as he had thought of doing. The butterfly room was a horrific tangled mess of green grass in twisted pipes and weird machinery. The pool now ran around the rim of a huge circular room with another corridor running through the middle. And through out it all, the Doctor kept touching the walls making soothing noises as if he were calming a child who had grazed its knee. They finally reached the secondary control room. It was just as badly damaged as the rest of the TARDIS. One half of it looked as if it had been melted by a blowtorch. The central time rotor was a still bubbling mass of something that looked like pink jelly, and the usually pristine white walls and roundels were blackened and warped as if from fire. The Doctor started playing with the small keyboard on the undamaged half of the console.Meaningless figures and characters flickered fitfully past his eyes as he took in the data. "Oh dear. This could be very serious indeed." He mumbled, as his fingers rattled the keyboard. Sam frowned, and looked nervously at Fitz who had started to poke around the older console room. If the Doctor thought this was serious then that meant they were in real trouble. He hadn't even called their adventures on Skaro 'Serious'. She wandered over to Fitz. "We have a problem Fitz, this is going to be bad." He turned and looked at her. Bravado was chiselled into his expression but the fear gleamed in his eyes with fiery intensity. They both jumped as the external monitor screen behind them opened slightly, and then fell out of it mounting with a shower of sparks. The Doctor rushed over and knelt underneath the screen. "Ah we're in a high energy pocket created by the TARDIS's temporal integrity field." He crawled out from under the screen. "We're lucky, we could have been killed." He said, standing up. "It appears that a 'strange matter' seed has been introduced to the local space-time continuum. Luckily we were in the time vortex when it happened and not in normal space." His companions looked at him expectantly. "This entire sector of space, if not the universe has been transferred into a lower energy state than normal. Our rules don't apply any more, our biology won't work out there, the TARDIS can't operate, and we're trapped like flies in amber." Sam looked at him. "Oh." The Doctor shook his head. "That's not the last of it. The TARDIS is having to expend enormous amounts of energy to maintain the temporal stasis field we're in." Fitz sat down on a bare patch of floor. "Let me guess, it's not going to last forever?" The Doctor nodded. "The spatial link to the eye of harmony on Gallifrey is still open, but the type forty TARDIS's didn't have high energy intake inhibitors installed. While we're stuck in here the TARDIS is literally sucking the life out of Gallifrey, there will be TARDIS's left scattered across the cosmos without power and it appears that the energy output isn't enough to stabilise our little bubble of space-time." It was Sam's turn to sit down. "So we're buggered, is what your saying." She sighed. "Not entirely. If we can locate the strange matter seed we can isolate it. It's like a seed crystal. Once removed from the space-time lattice, everything should return to normal. We should be within a cubed parsec of the source." He rattled the keyboard again. "And from what I can tell it seems to be artificial in nature rather than a natural phenomenon." Sam looked at him. "So what you're saying is, we have to find a single particle of strange matter in a square parsec of space. Space that we can't live in, and none of our laws of physics apply. Its a bit of a tall order, even for you." Fitz put his hand up. "Er, how big is a parsec? And how big is this particle?" The Doctor stroked his chin. "Now then, in Earth terms, one light year is the time it takes for a particle wave of photons, light, to travel about six million, million miles in a single Earth year. Now a parsec is about 3.3 light years, which is roughly 19 trillion miles. Now cube it and you have our search area." Fitz looked around the console room. "And the particle?" The Doctor rubbed a finger across the white console. "Well a strange matter particle would be about the same size as a gluon, maybe a touch larger. Gluons are sub-atomic particles which stick atoms together; in the most basic of terms." Fitz looked at Sam. "We're buggered aren't we." She nodded glumly. The Doctor shook his head. "Not entirely. The TARDIS sensor logs indicate a single point of origin rather than a cascaded natural cause. That would imply that it's artificial in origin. Probably the result of a botched particle accelerator experiment or maybe a damaged hyperspace dimensional stabiliser." He tapped his chin, deep in thought. "Er, would an experiment with strings do it?" Asked Fitz. "Its just that I was watching one on TV when it happened."


	2. Recovering

Fitz looked down into the bowels of the machine, a thousand metres below the platform. "So what's this thing?" The Doctor bustled around an organic looking control panel. "Well, the TARDIS is actually a field research vessel. Before she came under my ownership, she was exploring the boundary Universe. This," He waved an arm at the sparkling edifice. "This is a Boundary Field Effect generator. I've only had to use it once or twice before. The last time was just before my fifth incarnation." Fitz lowered his eyebrows. "Yes... And... How's it going to help us?" The Doctor grinned. "The TARDIS is capable of moving outside the Universe. The B.F.E.G effectively creates a Micro-Universe. By moving outside, we avoid the effect of the cascade. It'll give us time to think!" 

Sam was also peering into the depths of the machine. "But isn't the TARDIS disabled? I thought the eye of harmony was being drained?" Slowly a high-pitched whine crawled down the frequencies, to become a deep, rich, throbbing hum. The Doctor turned on a ten thousand watt grin. "The TARDIS is a type forty. After the accidents with the type 30's, they sensibly decided to include backup fusion generators. Which, I've just brought online."  He fiddled with the control panel some more. "Hang on, this is usually a little unsettling." 

The deep pulsing throb quickened, and around the machine the air shimmered as if in a heat haze. "Well that wasn't too bad. I thought you said..." Fitz dropped to the ground before he could complete his sentence as the decking lurched out from underneath them. His stomach turned flip-flops as the TARDIS' gravity moved around. When it was all over, he found himself clinging grimly to the decking and desperately trying not to throw up. "That it would be unsettling." He finished, fighting the taste of bile in his mouth. The Doctor let go of the control panel. "Come on, no time to waste. We need to find that particle!" With that, he rushed out. Sam and Fitz looked at each other. "I hate it when he does that." Fitz looked down through the grating. "Yeah me too." He replied before he promptly threw up.

Cassandra opened her eyes. The last thing she could remember was being picked up by the air and thrown across the operations room of the accelerator. The 'bodyguards' had followed her, one not so fortunate. He was lying with his back against the wall, his neck obviously broken. She felt badly bruised, and it hurt to breath. As she sat up, she felt a hideous grinding in her chest, coupled with excruciating pain. For a moment she thought she would black out, instead she threw up which hurt even more. Retching and dizzy, she climbed slowly to her feet. 

There was something wrong with the room; in her current state she had to concentrate on her surroundings. She found a chair that was still upright and sat down gingerly, clutching her broken ribs to stop them from moving too much. She swivelled around slowly to take in her surroundings. Everyone else was still unconscious, and it was probably just as well. One wall had disappeared, engulfed in what could only be described as a black fog. It wavered slightly, as if there were things moving on the other side of the boundary. The rest of the room was in disarray. One of the large consoles looked like it had been partially melted, and then thrown against a wall where it had stuck like a wet tissue. She struggled to hold onto her stomach, as she noticed a white-coated arm sticking out from one side. 

The door into the accelerator ring had been blown off its hinges by the first explosion. She could tell by the blackened soot marks spraying outwards from the doorframe. Then she noticed one of the reporters' crew that had been in the room. He was dead; nothing was more obvious than that. Though the manner of his death was different. He was suspended at the far end of the room. Stopped in mid flight as he was being tossed from the detonation. One arm was sticking into the black fog covering one side of the room. A thick frost was slowly gathering over his frozen form. The ice jutted out from his skin in a myriad of crystal spikes. Around him, the air was thick with water condensing out from the atmosphere. He was cold, immensely cold. It hadn't yet affected the room properly, but it would soon. It would be colder than a meat locker, if she didn't move. 

Groans were coming from the others now, as she slowly made her way to the door. The only route out was through the accelerator chamber, and with some luck she'd meet up with the others. She held onto her ribs and tried not move too sharply, her head felt like someone had punched it and her left cheek was swollen and bleeding. Gingerly, she stepped over prone guard near the door, and into the long corridor that held the accelerator itself. Things had changed here too. 

        The long tube was buckled, much in the same way as a squashed cardboard tube, except this tube had been a two-inch thick aluminium vacuum pipe designed to hold particles travelling at close to the speed of light. Magnets were strewn over the floor, where they had been ripped free of their mountings. Some of the high-tension cables were still connected, and she could feel the tug of strong magnetic fields on the metal in her clothes. She couldn't hold it in any longer, the spinning in her head was getting worse, and the huge lines of magnetic force flailing the chamber was only compounding the effect. She dropped to the floor, and emptied her stomach before passing out. Strangely detached, she thought her cheekbone was broken, before everything turned dark.

        She dreamed. A long, thin, silver line stretched out in front and behind. It glowed softly, a cool white halo of light surrounding it. Outside of that, creatures swarmed, and snapped at each other. Then slowly, they stopped and scattered. Monsters frightened away by something even more monstrous than themselves. She looked down, to find that the polished floor was no longer there. Falling away from the light, she screamed at the voice that was booming around her. "_Come to me_"

        She awoke with a start, to find herself lying in a pool of vomit. Bile rose in her throat, but she fought it back, and pushed herself up into a sitting position. The chamber's light had gone out, and emergency lights flickered fitfully in the gloom. She gently wiped her face with the sleeve of her jacket. Her head wasn't as dizzy, although her cheek felt puffy and painful when she touched it. Leaning against a wall, she pushed herself upright against the smooth concrete. She had to get out, and she had to do it now. Voices were beginning to echo along the chamber. Still reeling from the explosion, she walked along the wall, feeling the smooth, cool, concrete running past her fingertips and listening to the reassuring click and tap of her shoes on the floor. 

She didn't notice the lights were dimming until she saw the object. She'd been walking for what seemed like an eternity, when she finally made it to the professor's detector. Or at least where the detector, and her bomb, had been. Floating in the gap was a small black sphere, and surrounding it, at a distance of two metres, small filaments of darkness pulsed and drifted, like a small plasma ball. There were large gaps in the halo, and she stepped inside to get a closer look. The sphere was inky black, with no reflections, and appeared to be solid. She took a pen from the top pocket of her suit, and gently tapped it. It absorbed the sound; the result was beginning to freak her out a little. All she could hear was the sound of her breathing and the echoes of ghosts. Tentatively she reached out and touched it.

        The control room of the TARDIS was re-growing. Having been divested of the enormous energy drain of operating in a section of the universe with completely different laws physics, the vessel was able to start repairing the damage. "Ugh! Gross!" Said Sam, as a new strut snaked out of the debris. Fitz turned a little paler, and started breathing heavily. The journey back hadn't done his stomach any more good, and the knowledge of what had gone before still haunted his immediate memory. Especially after he had taken a sneak peek at how his bedroom was doing. It hadn't been pleasant.

        The Doctor was fiddling with a large jumble of wires and switches. With a flourish, he flicked a switch and looked up. The external view flickered and wavered above them. "It's a bit out of focus isn't it?" Said Sam, tipping her head back. Fitz didn't bother. He could see the edge of it waving about, and the worst sea voyage of his life sprang to mind. The Doctor twiddled a few knobs attached to his pile of wires. The image cleared, and the full extent of the damage became immediately apparent. 

        "Looks like one of those big plasma ball thingies you can buy in the gadget shop." Fitz looked up at the stabilised image. "That cannot be the Universe." The Doctor was staring up at the drifting bands of darkness as they drifted around. Galaxies and quasars went dim, shifting in to the red as the bands passed across them. The centre was obvious, although from outside the source was shrouded in darkness. Sam turned to the Doctor. "Aren't those things moving a little fast? I mean; we can see this thing engulfing millions of Galaxies and stuff in real time. It's not speeded up is it?" The Doctor shook his head. "No, it's not speeded up. The seed is directly affecting the structure of the Universe, and as such, it isn't bound by such constants like the speed of light. It's more akin to a mathematical transform imposed on the information matrix, governing the Universal data set." 

They looked at him. "The Universe isn't just particles of matter, whizzing about the place. It's also made up of information that tells each particle what it is, where it is and what it's supposed to be doing. A Strange matter particle is dominant, and re-programs that information so that its surrounding environment is more like itself." Fitz watched the black lines moving around. Funny, it was almost pretty. "So what makes this one different from a natural one?" He gave Sam an 'I listen too you know' smile. 

        The Doctor had picked up the bundle of wires and walked back to regurgitating console. He dropped the bundle next to it, and they started to crawl inside. "The formation is not typical of a natural cascade effect." Fitz looked at him. "Are you telling me there's been one before? " The Doctor shook his head. "No, no. Not in this Universe. A natural formation is more like a crystallisation. The result is solid in all dimensions. This..." He waved his hand at the image above their heads. "This is the effect of an unstable particle. It's stuck between its source and destination, partially materialised. So it's acting much like a radioactive particle, except this one is firing information rather than charged particles."

         "So we can stop this right?" Said Sam moving quickly out of the way, as another strut gracefully folded into the air. The Doctor grinned. "We should be able to get close enough to set up a standing boundary field extension. Once we've got it trapped we should be able to eject it from the Universe." He looked pointedly at Fitz. "It might be a little rough though Fitz. I don't usually condone the use of unnecessary medication, but do you want something to keep you going?" Fitz quickly weighed the options. He didn't think he had anything left inside to get rid of, but he was fairly certain that it wouldn't stop his stomach trying. "Roll on the drugs Doc. Anything to stop me from being ill again." He burped, tasting acid in his mouth.

        It was smooth, frictionless and cold to the touch. It felt incredibly heavy, and yet she could move it with the tip of her finger. Cassandra had to admit; she was intrigued. "_Take it with you_." She span around; startled by the whisper. There was nothing there, but furtive shadows dancing in the strange light emanating from the sphere. She grasped the sphere in one hand. The feeling of someone standing next to her was undeniable, and she took another look around. The hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end, but she pocketed the sphere and ran out through the hole in the wall.


	3. Getting to the root of a moving problem

Neelam woke up, lying face down on the immaculate lawn of the institute. The last thing he remembered was pressing the button to remote-detonate the bomb. It had always been the resistance's intention to kill president Thomson, of course if it had been an accident then all the better, as it wouldn't point directly at them. He had known the bomb wasn't anywhere near the monster when it went off; but as far as he saw it, it was more important to have a live prisoner than a dead martyr. Then the bomb had exploded. Cautiously, he raised his head. This wasn't right. The amount of devastation was incredible, and far more than there should have been for the amount of explosives they had used. The sky was covered in huge ribbons of blackness, whipping back and forth in torment. Some reached the ground, flickering spasmodically as they scoured the life from it. The trails they left behind sparkled with frost and steamed with intense cold.   
Inanimate objects seemed unchanged, other than being covered in a thick frost, but living matter... As the dark taint moved through trees, bushes and people, they left behind monsters. Rancid fungi bloomed, throwing foul smelling spores into the air. Huge, balloon like, slugs browsed immense rotting black leaves covered in spines. Spindly-legged predators hunted amongst them; using long proboscis to inject their chosen prey with digestive enzymes and toxins. Neelam listened to the screams of strange new life forms, intertwined with those of his fellow race. He had awoken in hell. Years of military training took hold in his mind. The mission parameters had been changed drastically. He looked around; he had five of his assault team left. Still armed, they were vastly more dangerous than the slow moving creatures around him, although the black air seemed to be moving quickly, and in a seemingly random way. That was the enemy now, Thomson and his cronies paled in comparison. "Jaxxson, get the others on their feet. We're going in to get Cassandra, and the president. Screw the assassination." 

The console room was slowly beginning to look like its old self again. The view of the universe flickered in and out of darkness, as black tendrils weaved and curled across it. Fitz was drinking something that looked almost exactly like milk, except it tasted like spicy orange juice. He certainly didn't feel ill anymore, which was number one on his current list of things to tick off. He took another mouthful, and mentally ticked it, then thoroughly scribbled it out with a thick black felt tipped pen. Can't get much more ticked than that! He thought. The Doctor was fiddling around with some big machine that walked around on it own set of legs. Fitz had asked what it was, and as usual he'd been given a full explanation that went straight over his head, about three words in. He'd nodded as if he'd understood everything the Doctor had gone on about, and gone back to the TV chair with his new found drink.  
The Doctor was finishing the remote manipulator unit's calibrations when he heard a gasp. Sam was staring straight up, mouth wide open. The Doctor rose from his ministrations, and went over to her. "What's wrong Sam?" She turned to look at him. "I saw a face! Clear as day. It was in one of the black threads." The Doctor smiled. "It was probably just a pattern that your brain interpreted as a face. Just like seeing animals in clouds." She shook her head. "I know what I saw." Fitz took this point to wander over to the pair looking up at the universe. "What's up Doc?" They both looked at him. He smiled sheepishly. "Sorry, it was too good an opportunity and I couldn't resist."   
"Sam thought she saw a face."  
"What, like in clouds and stuff?" Sam scowled. "No. One of the big black things made a face. It looked like it was looking for something." Fitz looked up at the swirling morass. "Can't see anything now."   
"Of course you can't see anything now, it's gone! Look, if you don't believe me, just say so." Tight lipped, she stomped away; leaving the Doctor and Fitz watching her go. Fitz looked at the Doctor. "What did I say?" The Doctor turned to him. "I think we're going to have to work on your timing Fitz." He looked at the disappearing back of Sam. "I think mine could do with a tuning as well." He returned to the remote manipulator unit. Fitz followed. "So run this by me again?" The Doctor opened his mouth. "Simply this time? I'm still getting used to the TV's remote control remember." The Doctor knelt down next to the tube like machine. "Maybe it would be better to show you." He played with some controls on the side. The short legs on the bottom of the seven-foot tube retracted, like quicksilver running into the base. The brushed metal gradually turned silver, and then the tube split up the middle forming legs. Two branches split away from the sides, and the next thing Fitz knew, there were two Doctors standing in front of him. "What do you think?" said one of them. Fitz stepped back. "Okay, I'm freaked. What next, a copy of me?" The real Doctor stepped forward. "Yes actually." He turned back to his duplicate. "The TARDIS is equipped to handle all types of environment. When pressure suits aren't enough, the researchers would send in an r.m.u. Basically it's an advanced version of early twenty first century Earth's tele-presence technology. The strange matter environment is inimical to us, so we'll remote pilot one of these into the trouble zone, seal it off and get rid of it. Simple!" Fitz looked at him. "I was doing fine until tele-whatsit."   
"Basically Fitz, it's a puppet. Everything it senses will be fed directly to you, so that you'll think your actually there, when you'll be sitting comfortably in a chair here."   
"Does that mean we're not going anywhere, but the robots are?" The Doctor nodded. "That's cool. What are they called again?"   
"Technically they're remote manipulation units, but I like to call them avatars. This is the first time I've used them. Usually I prefer to go and see for myself. However, in this case there is a very clear danger. Using an avatar we should be able to pass through a low-energy interface without harm." He busied himself with the controls on the sides of two more of the units, lying in their boxes next to each other. "Stand right where you are, the units need to copy you." One of the cylinders rose vertically out of its box, and tottered over to Fitz on its spindly legs. Fitz stood there, waiting for the towering tube to do something. "That's it. Could you send Sam over here so we can bring her avatar online?" Fitz paused. "What, that's it?" The Doctor nodded. "Off you go; I have to finish you off." He strode over to Fitz's avatar and started to fiddle with its control panel. 

Neelam's day was slowly progressing from just plain bad, through worse and rapidly into the nether realms of atrocious. Moving quickly across the compound to the hole in the side of the accelerator lab's wall, they had moved in. Only to run straight into president Thompson's personal, and very heavily armed, guard unit. Fortunately for both sides, Thompson had called a ceasefire before anyone had a chance to react. Now he was standing opposite the person he had been sent to kill. Parts of him were screaming 'Shoot him! Shoot him now! While you have the chance!' while his training firmly whispered in his ear that they needed Thompson's guard unit, badly. He'd sent two of his men into the lab to search for survivors, and Cassandra. That's when he heard his men screaming. He'd never heard that before. He'd seen plenty of his men die, but usually it had been during an explosion or a firefight. This time, they'd been standing quietly in the accelerator corridor, when the screams had echoed down to them. Chilling everyone to the bone. They had created a subtle shift, and the two separate groups suddenly became a single pack of very frightened men. The fear was heightened when they arrived at the control room; to find a huge creature, calmly tearing Neelam's men apart, and crunching through the bones like they were some kind of marshmallow coated biscuits. They had stood there watching the elephantine monster, wrap its tentacled arms around an arm and raise it to the grinding mandibles of its maw. Then they opened fire with everything they had. Blue blood spattered the walls, mixing with bloody red carnage it had already wrought.   
They staggered out into sickly red sunlight, which drenched everything in crimson. They were low on ammo, and the only person with legitimate access to the arms they needed to protect them, let alone find Cassandra, was president Thompson. Now Neelam was making a deal with the devil, but when he looked around at the devastation he couldn't help thinking 'Better the devil you know.' They had commandeered the only undamaged vehicle they could find, which just so happened to be a campus security four-by-four. Thompson's head guard was riding shotgun, with the president in the back holding on for dear life, as they avoided trailing bands of blackness and the gruesome results of their passing. "Why do you do it?" He shouted over the roar of the wind hurtling past. Irons, the chief security officer looked at him. "Pays good." He rumbled. The pays good; Jesus is that it? He protects the planets most hated dictator because the pays good? The 4x4 banked around a withered tree covered in a light grey ichor. "It'd have to be!" He shouted back. The man obviously didn't have any political inclination, didn't care whether the military budget was given precedence over the water distribution budget for the central provinces, didn't care that because of drought over twenty five thousand people had died over the last two years. The only reason the military existed, was to keep the populace in line. There were no other habitable worlds in this solar system, and all passing ships were FTL freighters selling their wares as they travelled from system to system. The orbital defence platforms were pointed at the planet's surface, allowing Thompson to surgically vaporise anything he wanted to. Not to mention he was the only one with the system codes, which was probably why there hadn't yet been a military coup. He couldn't help dwelling on the fact that the man was in arms reach. But Neelam needed weapons, and right now they were better off together than apart. He could deal with Thompson when they got out of this mess.   
He didn't see the tentacled outrage until one of its arms lashed out; smashing through the windscreen like it was made of rice paper. He was already dropping to one side as the feeler caught the armour of his right shoulder, ripping it clean off and covering him in foul smelling mucus. One of the guards, who had been hanging onto the outside of the little vehicle, was as lucky as the barbed suckers lodged in his skin and clothing. He was torn away from the vehicle so quickly all he managed was a look of surprise as he disappeared out of sight. The 4x4, now effectively driverless, careened into a ravaged tree throwing everyone to the ground.   
Viscous fluids pumped spasmodically from the frame, as it leaked battery gel into the torn earth beneath it. Neelam pushed himself upright. No one appeared hurt, barring scratches and bruises. "Sir, stay absolutely still." Came a hissed voice. Jaxxson was slowly reaching for his plasma carbine, his hand searching for the weapon next to him, without his eyes leaving a point above and behind Neelam's head. The hairs on the back of Neelam's neck were beginning to slowly rise, as he realised something large and nasty was directly behind him. Something large, and heavy shuffled behind him, and he felt something touch his back. Suddenly Jaxxson's slow movements accelerated to viper-like speed. Smoothly he picked up the carbine, swivelled and let off five clean rounds. As the thing behind him started making screaming, bubbling noises, Neelam was already over a metre away and still accelerating. Seconds later he was at Jaxxson's side, and stole a look at what had nearly had him for lunch. It was one of the elephantine predators. A large pear shaped body, supported by six barrels shaped legs. The body was covered in thick, black, scales. The mouthparts were obviously designed for crunching through armoured hides, and were surrounded by a thick nest of octopus-like tentacles. The creature was still moving, albeit sluggishly. Even after five shots from an armour-piercing carbine, the thing was still heading towards them, waving its multiple arms at them. Jaxxson fired five more shots, straight down the creature's gullet. It simply stopped; supported by its legs, the tentacles drooped and it was dead. Neelam suddenly realised he wasn't breathing and heaved a sigh of relief. "How many is that I owe you now?" Jaxxson grinned. "Too many to count. Let's just make sure you're paying for the grog the next time we see a bar. If we get to see one." Neelam took the moment to take control of their rag-tag group. "We're going to have to walk the rest of the way. If we're lucky, it'll only take twenty minutes to get to the arms depot if we stick to the main route. If we're not, it'll take longer." 

Cassandra was feeling faint and somehow diminished. Inside her little bubble of reality, she kept hearing whispered voices. Shadows flittered past, keeping to the periphery of her vision, never allowing her to fully look at them. She saw strange creatures roaming the altered landscape, predating off one another in a seemingly unending orgy of carnage. The strangest thing was that it happened in slow motion. The creatures were obviously moving at the right speed for them, for where they came from, but it was like watching a film at one-quarter speed. They trundled across mats of blackened fungi and withered, dark blue leaved, trees; and always the incessant whispering behind her head telling her where to go. She clutched the small sphere in her hands, drawing comfort from its solidity in a world going to pieces at the speed of light. She was nearing her destination though. Maybe then the voice would stop.   
The small sphere had been difficult to manoeuvre after all. Like a gyroscope, it didn't like moving up and down. It had started at a certain height, and wanted very much to stay there. Moving it horizontally had been fine. The University campus had been built on a five-kilometre plateau that had been levelled to within a millimetre variance. It wasn't until she approached the edge of the plateau that she realised the sphere was locked into one plane. It had two implications. The first was how the hell she was going to get it down, and secondly it gave her some information about the nature of the object. She knew it wasn't a pocket Universe. They had been created in well-documented experiments on many colony worlds. No, this was something very, very different. Being locked in a single plane implied the object had spin. Even though she could hold it in her hands quite safely. Her old professor had described the experiment in full, so a macroscopic quantum particle was not out of the question. It could also be a wrapped string that had become partially unbundled from the firmament. The possibilities were beginning to fizz in her mind, as she manhandled the object into a tourist elevator to take it down. The hope was, that the roof of the elevator would force the object down. Of course, it was just as possible that it would simply punch a whole through the roof, but she didn't think that was likely. Especially as she had been able to force it down with whatever brute strength she could muster. With the sphere finally inside the elevator, she took a moment to relax. Around her the scene was remarkable. The elevator was a tourist, all glass, affair giving a full view of the dizzying drop below, and the mountains in the misted distance. The sphere clanged against the ceiling, as the elevator started on the thousand foot drop to sea level. Inside the quiet elevator, the whispers gathered around her like a cloud of mosquitoes. Half-words flew around her head, with the occasional hint of something monstrous laughing demonically. She pressed her face against the glass and tried to block them out. "Over soon" She whispered to herself. "Over soon." 


	4. Would you mind putting that gun down?

Back at the university, a wheezing, groaning sound filled the air as the TARDIS came cautiously into view. Surrounding the familiar blue police box was a sparkling sphere of light, which danced like the surface of a soap bubble. Occasionally it threw off sparks, and fizzed, making a noise like freshly poured carbonated water. The door unlocked, and the Doctor's head poked out. Slowly the Doctor's avatar took a tentative step outside. Sam followed, and Fitz took up the rear, both looking decidedly wobbly on their new legs. "This is too weird!" Said Sam, clutching at the TARDIS for support. "You're telling me!" Replied Fitz. "I can feel the armchair, and all this at the same time." The Doctor looked as comfortable as ever, as he examined the interface between the TARDIS' pocket Universe and the real one outside. "You'll soon get used to it. Walk around the TARDIS a few times. It's like riding a bike." He grinned. Sam glowered back, before tottering unsteadily behind the battered blue box. "Walking while you're sitting comfortably is not like riding a bike." Grumbled Fitz, as he followed Sam.

Soon the Doctor deemed the pair steady enough to pass through the interface. Fitz eyed the fizzing bubble with trepidation. "Is this going to hurt?" The Doctor shook his head. "How about any discomfort? I'm just remembering the last time you said it might be a 'little rough'."  Again, the Doctor shook his head. "Unless there is a malfunction in the avatar threshold filters you shouldn't feel a thing." Fitz waved his alternate hand in front of his face. "When was the last time you used these? Oh that's right you haven't." Frowning, the Doctor came over to the pair. "Fitz, Timelord technology is built to last millennia. These avatars were still in their original manufacturing foam and were stored in a zero tau cabinet onboard the TARDIS. They will be fine." He gently pushed them backwards through the interface. Fitz and Sam blinked, as they suddenly found themselves outside the safety of the pocket Universe. The Doctor followed them through. "See?" He grinned. "Let's get to work. The sooner we deal with this the better." He strode off, wielding a small metal bar covered in feathery antennae.

As they were walking, Fitz couldn't resist asking the Doctor about the TARDIS and its pocket Universe. The Doctor looked at him. "I take it you want the layman's view?" Fitz nodded. "Well, technically speaking," Fitz winced. "The TARDIS is still outside the Universe looking in."

"That can't be right, it's over there." He pointed.

"Fitz, the edge of the Universe is a concept. It's expanding at an increasing rate, and eventually entropy will have its way, but in order for it to expand it has to expand into something yes?" Fitz nodded; it made sense. "So what's it expanding into?" He asked. The Doctor smiled knowingly. "That's the clever part, and why the TARDIS is over there while still being 'outside' our Universe. The Cosmos is expanding into itself." Fitz suddenly switched to 'Deer in the headlights' mode. "It's like pumping foam into a big glass ball." Said the Doctor, hastily. "You start out with big bubbles, but as you keep on squeezing more foam in, the bubbles get smaller and smaller. The foam can't go beyond the glass, but it needs to fit more and more in. As a result, the foam already inside contains the foam that is expanding into the glass ball! Simple." Fitz shook his head. "Whoa, that doesn't quite explain where the inside and outside is." 

"Very well. Imagine our glass ball, and the foam expanding inside. Remove the glass, but keep the expansion going. The TARDIS is riding the internal expansion like a surfer rides a wave. The pocket Universe surrounding the TARDIS is the surfboard. Now can you tell me where the edge of the Universe is?" Fitz's expression betrayed the amount of thinking flashing through his brain. "Right here?" The Doctor slapped him on the back. "Congratulations Fitz, you've just made the first step to understanding transcendental physics." 

"I think one step is enough Doc. Next time I ask, remind me about the headache I'm getting."

The day alternated between brilliant sunshine and turquoise skies to fetid late evening under a sick and bloated sun. Above them lines of black writhed across the sky. The Doctor seemed to be waving his detector aimlessly in front of them. "Oh dear. I think we may have a problem." Fitz and Sam stopped. "What do you mean, we have a problem?" Said Sam. The Doctor waved his gadget around in the air, as different colours played over its surface. "I was expecting the particle the particle to be spatially fixed." Fitz looked exasperated. "Which means?" The Doctor looked at them both, worry crinkling the plaster on his forehead. "It's on the move…"

The plateau weapons depot had suffered damage from explosives and general weapons fire. Strewn around the entrance were swathes of dead soldiers and creatures of varying shapes and sizes. Neelam didn't take solace from the look on Thompson's face. He'd obviously never experienced such wholesale slaughter himself, and he looked as ill as Neelam felt. "Jaxxson, take two men and find out the state of the depot. They couldn't have used it all. Watch out for hostiles, and if its got more than two legs make sure you're the last thing it sees." Jaxxson saluted, and took one of their original group and one of the bodyguards. 'Good man' Thought Neelam, no need to go giving Thompson any excuses. "You, you and you set up a narrow perimeter. Same orders. If it doesn't look human, put it down and make sure it stays down." He picked three more men and positioned them appropriately. "The rest of you are last line of defence." Thompson was staring blankly at the bodies as if they would go away if he dismissed them hard enough. Neelam put a hand on his shoulder. "This is what happens on the battle field. This is what happened to the men and women who fought for and against you. This is what happened to the people you put to death for not accepting you as their leader." Thompson turned, and looked Neelam in the eye. There was fear there. The real stuff, visceral, self-preserving, animal fear. There was also the intelligence of a master political strategist who had stayed in power for nearly thirty years. "I was sent to assassinate you, but given the current situation I need you alive. Are you going to co-operate?" Thompson nodded silently, glancing temporarily back at the deceased soldiers. "Let's put this shambles back together."

They headed into the depot's compound area, just as a lumbering giant stumbled, mewling, out of a black band that was drifting by. By the time Neelam and Thompson turned around, the monster was under fire. "Back inside the bunker now!" Neelam grabbed Thompson and pulled him towards the concrete building.

The Doctor, Fitz and Sam were looking through the hole in the wall of the accelerator chamber. The Doctor's detector lit the interior with changing, glowing, colours. "I think I can guess what happened." He pointed at where the I.R.A.S. detector used to be. This would have been where the main chamber resided. Here is the entry funnel from the main accelerator." He turned around and knelt at the rubble strewn outside the hole. He picked up a chunk of concrete. "This was blown out, and by the small crater just inside the wall, I'd say that was where the explosives were planted." He looked at the wall opposite. It was covered in black carbon deposits, except for a roughly spherical shape. "Oh dear, this really was an accident." Sam kicked at a piece of rubble. "So what really happened Doctor?" He stood next to the break in the accelerator funnel. "This is where the test chamber used to be. It would have contained a static plasma gas that was supposed to receive the energised particle stream from the accelerator. As the accelerator released its particle stream, the explosion must have compressed the plasma inside the chamber. The stream entered the compressed plasma, with a vastly increased possibility of creating a strange matter particle." He sighed. "This type of experiment is so dangerous! They could just have easily vaporised their planet, not to mention destroy most of the local solar system. Instead they've damaged the entire Universe, maybe irreparably." Fitz cocked his head to one side. "Can anyone hear gun-fire?"

Neelam was trying to keep his weapon reloaded, while Jaxxson was hunting desperately for a rocket launcher to use with the rockets they'd found. The insect creature had proved nastier than they'd anticipated. Oh, it moved slowly enough, but it had an armoured carapace that just ignored small arms fire. All they were doing was aggravating it, as it attempted to chew through the doorway. "Where's that damn launcher!" The huge creature tore another lump of reinforced concrete away from the doorframe, as it attempted to fit its bulk inside the bunker entrance. Rumbling a deep-throated roar, it shoved against the weakened opening. Around its head, Neelam and the others poured round after round into beast. One of the guards came rushing back with a bag full of grenades, and one primed in his hand. "Fire in the hole!" He shouted. Even with all the noise, Neelam heard the deadly quiet ping of the grenade's pin touching the smooth concrete floor. Everyone around him stopped firing, and dove for cover. Keeping their mouths wide open to stop the pressure wave from the explosion ripping their eardrums apart. The grenade made a metallic 'Tink, Tink' noise as it hit the floor and rolled under the front of the creature. In the confined space, the noise was deafening, even though it had been muffled by the monsters bulk. The creature shrieked and went wild, knocking huge chunks out of the wall as it fought its way in. "Everyone behind me!" Neelam looked up from his face down position, black and purple spots blinked on and off in his vision. He had been farthest away from the grenade, and could only just hear Jaxxsons voice over the tremendous ringing in his ears. Getting up, he quickly rounded up the men, pulling them up by the scruff of the neck and throwing them towards Jaxxson. Quickly, they went through the door that led deeper into the bunker. Jaxxson knelt down on one knee and aimed the rocket launcher. "Chew on this…" The rocket streaked across the room and neatly slid underneath the towering behemoth. The explosion ripped the monster apart, coating the inside of the bunker entrance with blue blood and meat. The remains of the huge carcass slumped forward through the hole it had made, and poured fluids into the room making the floor slippery with viscera. Neelam turned to a grinning Jaxxson. "I know you enjoyed that, but what took you so long?" Jaxxson pointed a thumb behind him. "Thompson couldn't remember the release code on the main armoury. Everything out there is small arms stuff for fast response," He pointed at the bloodied room. "The juicy stuff is back there." Neelam raised an eyebrow. "Juicy?" His friend nodded, and patted the launcher. "This is kids stuff. They've got portable tac nukes back there, not to mention the chemical and gene-warfare stuff. Looks like they've been stockpiling it; heaven knows what for." Neelam would have to think about the gene-warfare stuff later. "Take two men, and bring back two nukes and as much body armour and hardware as you can carry." He turned to the rest, as Jaxxson and two others rushed off. "I don't give two shakes of a dweeble's rear end what's been stock-piled where. The room is now a kill zone. Any non-humanoids or anything that doesn't look remotely like us gets introduced to the wrong end of any high-velocity weapons we can find. I want everyone armed with armour piercing. There are a lot of nasty things out there right now, and this place is about to become a smorgasbord. As soon as we have what we came for, we're moving out. In the meantime I expect every single one of you to defend this doorway with your lives." He turned to each one in turn, and gave them their orders, and then strode into the rear of the bunker to find what other nasty things that Thompson hadn't told anyone was in his cupboard. 

            Fitz and Sam were getting quite used to being able to run at nearly thirty miles an hour, without any breathing difficulties or even breaking a sweat. The three avatars sped across the campus in the direction of the firing, and came within sight of the weapons depot when Jaxxsons rocket propelled grenade went off underneath the monster insectoid that was trying to smash its way in. Fitz hadn't seen anything that big that wasn't a whale, and he certainly hadn't seen that much blood before either, blue or otherwise. "We'd better go and see if there are any injured. I can't see anything in infra-red from here, it's all just a big smear." Said the Doctor starting off again. Within moments they were looking up at the carcass, and stepping to avoid the bits that were spread around. "What on Earth was this?" Sam said, looking around at the remains. "I'm not sure Sam, it obviously seems to be some type of insect. The blue blood indicates it's a remote relative of the dead creature we met earlier. The carapace is almost certainly bullet proof, and although it's slow moving it's evidently powerful. It was probably a plains grazer, in its version of our Universe. Definitely indigenous to this world, though." Fitz stood back from a large, wobbling, purple thing. "It's from here? Then why did they blow it up?"

"Because it's not from this world, that's why." Said a voice from behind. The Doctor and companions spun around to find themselves facing nine, heavily armoured, men sporting a variety of weapons. The lead soldier stepped forward and raised his weapon; it clicked, and started to buzz frenetically. "Who are you, and what are you doing here?" 

With quiet click, the elevator reached the ground. Cassandra looked out across the plain. Plumes of smoke and other acrid gasses were rising up over the gently rippling land. The shallow hills were all that was left of the flanks of the volcano, of which the plateau behind her was the volcanic plug. Reaching up, she jumped for the sphere and managed to get her hands around its top. Using her weight, she managed to drag it down far enough to be able to press it down. Part of her mind was screaming at her to run as far, and as fast, as she could, but it was like a compulsion. This was something she needed to do, like drinking water or eating. With the sphere at an easily managed height, she pushed it gently through the door. The last part was going to be a struggle, she knew, but at least it wasn't too far now.

The Doctor was on familiar ground. Years of experience handling U.N.I.T. and the brigadier had taught him to recognise a good soldier who was clearly out of his depth. The soldier in front of him was a professional who didn't have a clue what was going on, and had done the first thing his defensive training had prepared him for. Find a defensible position and fortify it before making any more moves. All three had automatically put their hands in the air, which had been fortunate as the rest of the soldiers were obviously prepared to kill anything that wasn't remotely one of their kind. "We're here to help. We were passing through the neighbourhood when all this happened." The Doctor nodded at the surrounding devastation. On cue a long thin, snake-like, creature reared up out of the fungal forest and made a shrill bleating noise. There was a short rapport, and the lead soldier turned his smoking gun back to the Doctor. "Do you know what the hell is going on?" The Doctor nodded. The soldier lowered his weapon, and pulled back the visor on his helmet. "Then you'd better start explaining and make sure you don't make my bad day any worse. My name's Neelam."

Cassandra was wondering why she needed to head to the magnetic pole. "Freedom…" Came the reply out of nothingness. Her skin crawled, as she shivered. The voice was becoming stronger now, as she neared the pole. The macro-particle, as she had dubbed it, was also beginning to vibrate, probably in synchronicity with the increasing magnetic field concentration. Her hand felt the thrum, as the particle's event horizon chimed in the presence of the immense magnetic forces it was approaching. She began to wonder how the polar field would interact with the particle. If it was a super-conductor, and by its very nature it probably was, then it was quite possible that it would have some kind of gravitational reaction in the presence of such a large field. Use of dynamic gravitic fields as a function of the interaction of super-conductors and intense magnetic fields were commonly used in starship design. In fact, faster than light travel wouldn't be possible without the intriguing quantum trick, where dynamic magnetic fields were used to create the gravitational twisting needed for wormholes. Maybe that was what would happen. She would have to wait and see. 

She carried on. She wasn't within sight of the polar marker yet, but it was only another twenty minutes by her current estimate. The voices encouraged her on.

Neelam hadn't thought his day could possibly get any worse. In fact, he thought things were looking up, until the Doctor and his cavalcade had arrived. Things basically bottomed out at that point. Not only was his world shot to hell, literally, but the rest of the Universe too, according to the madman in front of him.  Then the be-frocked Doctor had calmly informed him that the thing that was causing all this had been taken from where it was created up at the lab. It was then, that the horror struck him. Cassandra must still be alive, and for some reason she had taken whatever it was with her. The Doctor was currently waving a feathery instrument around, trying to get a fix on the object, while everyone else sat around letting the information sink in. It sounded utterly ludicrous, coming from someone who had the appearance of a nineteenth century Englishman complete with accent. However, in the otherwise total absence of any other rational explanation, it was the only one that made any vague sense. "What's over there?" The Doctor was pointing with another smaller instrument. "I'm reading a very large magnetic field." Neelam walked over to him. "That's one of the poles. There's a roving tourist complex that keeps up with the drift." The Doctor frowned, made another reading with his feathery gadget, and whipped out a small notebook and pencil. His expression gradually turned more and more dour as the pages disappeared beneath his pencil. The hasty scribbling ground to a halt. He turned to Neelam. "We need to get over there now. If we don't it will be too late to put everything back the way it was." Neelam had seen that look before. He'd seen it on the face of more than one soldier in his time. Usually when they've just realised they'd walked into a minefield, and are warning everyone else to stop exactly where they are, and breath only on command. This was bad, and the Doctor was obviously the only one here who could understand just how bad it really was.


	5. Oh. It's an old friend's relative

The commandeered truck just about held everyone, although the suspension made some alarming noises when the Doctor, Sam and Fitz climbed onboard. The suspicious stares from the soldiers were disarmed by a glittering smile from the Doctor, and a sheepish one from Fitz as he climbed back onboard after falling out the back, twice. Fitz did his best to appreciate the sniggering, it was lightening the mood after all, but it was still hard. Then again, you didn't walk up to an armed squaddie shouting "Come an'ave a go if you fink yer 'ard enough!" and not expect to get a choice of being shot, hit with the butt of a gun, kicked, punched or all of the above. So for the sake of his, and his friends, safety he kept quiet. Soon all thoughts of falling out the back of a motionless vehicle were pushed to the backs of everyone's minds by the thought of falling out the back of a very fast vehicle, coupled with the side-order of pain that would inevitably go with it. The Doctor had his head poking through the window into the cab of the truck, and was giving directions to Neelam, as the transport truck bounced and swerved over the ground torn up by wandering monsters and the arrival of alternative, low-energy, flora from another dimension. Despite the stuff the Doctor had given him earlier, Fitz was beginning to feel ill again. Nor was he alone, as he looked around. The soldiers around him were beginning to look decidedly green about the gills with travel sickness as well. Sam, on the other hand, was practically enjoying being thrown around in the back of the truck and looked liked she'd been doing it all her life. Fitz suddenly had the urge to stare fixedly out the back of the truck, and concentrate on telling his stomach that everything was alright, and that there was no need for any more projectile vomiting thank you very much.

"We're getting close!" Shouted the Doctor over the din in the cab. Neelam had had his foot to the floor since they'd come down in the transport elevator. Unfortunately it had been on the west side of the plateau, which meant they had to go all the way round the bottom in order to reach the tourist lifts on the south side of the volcanic plug. The Doctor was really enjoying himself for once. There was nothing like careening over the landscape in a vehicle powered by a combustion engine. He missed his old beetle, and good old Bessie even more. His third incarnation may have hated being exiled to Earth for a long time, but his old yellow roadster still held a special place in his hearts. He was also impressed with Neelam's driving abilities, as they rushed at breakneck speed over the uneven surface. He stole a glance at the speedometer calculated the distance from the map he'd seen earlier. "We should be coming in sight of the polar centre in two minutes!" Neelam merely acknowledged him with a nod, as the truck veered around a large, fungus ridden, tree. "We need to keep an eye out for your friend. We have to get to her before she gets to the pole!" Thomson turned to the Doctor. "Why!" He bellowed. The Doctor peered at the horizon. "If we don't get to the particle, the polar magnetic field will polarise its event-horizon; bringing it fully into our Universe." The president waved his hands in the air. "What the hell is that supposed to mean!?" Neelam, without taking his eyes off the makeshift road he was imagining, shouted back. "I think it means if Cassie gets to the pole, we're all screwed!" The Doctor grinned. "An in-elegant, but very accurate description!" The president joined the Doctor in scanning the horizon for lone figures on foot. "I hope we find her." He muttered to himself. 

The Doctor felt someone tapping on his back. Sam was trying to get his attention, by dragging him out of the cab. "She's over there!" Shouted Sam, pointing to a figure nearly a mile and a half away, to their right. "Well spotted Sam!" He poked his head back into the cab. "Mr Neelam, off to your right. Sam just spotted her, just over a mile away." The truck swerved around to the right. "Tell the lads to get ready!" The doctor nodded, and wiggled back into the cab.

Cassandra heard the roar of a truck being pushed to its limits and beyond, well before she saw the lumbering vehicle bouncing over the uneven ground towards her. The whispered voices around her were practically frantic now, and the macro-particle was beginning to shimmer like summer heat being reflected off the surface of a road. One whisper was close though. This was the one that had been giving her directions, making her carry the macro-particle to its final destination. 

About half a mile away the roving tourist centre had started spraying ionised gas into the atmosphere above it, creating an artificial aurora that twisted and flowed in the planets immense magnetic field. At the moment it glittered with blues and reds, making it more visible in the dimming evening sunlight. During the late evenings and nights, the sky above the centre was a spectacular display of green, gold and subtle purples. Clearly showing the huge lines of magnetism as they flowed inexorably into through the planet. Unfortunately, Cassandra couldn't admire their beauty. The voice was becoming ever more forceful, and she felt herself losing control of her coordination. It was like she would forget that she was walking, and then suddenly realise and stumble. She would hear a voice, only to realise moments later that it was hers, and that she was mumbling in some strange language she didn't understand. Goaded and cajoled, she pushed on to the pole, gradually losing grip of what was left of her sanity.

The truck juddered to a halt ten metres in front of Cassandra, ripping up turf and bursting odd-looking fungi; spreading their rotting spores into the air. Everyone piled out, and looked at the haggard woman, stumbling towards them. Every so often she would bat at things that weren't there, screaming at them to go away. Strange words drifted towards them, guttural and half spoken, as if something that wasn't used to using a mouth and tongue, were trying to talk. Neelam ran up to her, and stepped through the grey penumbra that surrounded his friend. Her eyes were red rimmed and her skin was a deathly grey. "Cassandra?" He reached out and put his hands on her shoulders. Suddenly he found himself flying through the air, as she calmly batted him away. "You dare touch a God!" She screamed. Neelam landed with a thud, next to the truck. Winded, he pushed himself upright. Cassandra was no longer a stumbling, uncoordinated woman. She stood upright, her long hair flowing straight out behind her as a terrific wind suddenly erupted from the sphere in her hands. "Sam, Fitz, we need to separate her from the sphere. Come on!" The Doctor started struggling through the wind towards Cassandra. She turned her feral yellow eyes on the Doctor and his companions. "You!" She pointed directly at the Doctor. "I know you." The voice boomed over the screaming wind, as if it was echoing around a large chamber. "Do you?" Replied the Doctor struggling forward against the force of the hurricane. "You have me at a disadvantage!" Cassandra looked up at the aurora, as the shimmering air around her started to expand. "You are too late Doctor! For I am come forth from the Universe that was, into the Universe that is, to create the Universe that will be!" The Doctor groaned internally. "You wouldn't happen to be a relative of the great intelligence would you?" He shouted. Cassandra returned her gaze to the Doctor. Her eyes had become a rancid, pus yellow, and blood tears ran down her face as the force of the invader imposed itself on her comparatively frail body. "You know this thing?" Shouted Sam. The three were dragging themselves across the ground now, as the storm raged around them. Behind them, the soldiers were using the grappling pitons on their armour to anchor them to the ground. "It's an elder God from the previous cycle of the Universe!" He shouted back. "There were a number of them that attempted to transfer themselves over the thresh-hold as their Universe died and ours began. Except there was a problem, a time-travelling vessel from our Universe's future exploded the gas at event 1, killing most of them and wounding the rest. Some of remaining Gods wanted revenge for what had happened, and were exiled to an alternative dimension of the old Universe by the more rational leaders. One or two escaped. I suspect this one took advantage of the accident that happened up at the accelerator!" He finished as they crawled inside the macro-particle's penumbra. Suddenly the air about them was silent, and they stood face to face with the possessed Cassandra. "Now we have to do something about it." He whispered.

The atmosphere rippled around the macro-particle, as the object slowly started turning transparent from its previously opaque matte black. "You can't stop this Doctor. You do understand that don't you?" The thing puppeteering Cassandra pulled the sides of her mouth up, as it attempted to smile. Fitz shuddered, as all it seemed to achieve was an insane grimace. It was funny; the voice seemed almost apologetic in tone. "I'm not sure I need to." The Doctor replied. "The event horizon is degrading in the presence of the planetary geo-magnetic field, and it's not close enough to be fully polarised. You're going to have to get right inside the polar funnel for the strange matter particle to be fully realised." He looked back at the soldiers. "And I don't think our friends are going to let you take one step nearer." The puppet laughed. "Do you truly think they can stop me?" The Doctor turned back. "No, not really. But I can." Quickly he grabbed for the rippling sphere and pushed it away from Cassandra. She turned with lightning speed, and stopped the glowing ball before it escaped. "FOOL!" She grabbed the Doctor by the arm, and threw him bodily back into the raging wind. Fitz was mildly shocked, especially as the Doctor had told him that the validium avatars were almost a quarter of a tonne each! "To make sure the Doctor doesn't try that again, I'm going to kill one of you." Cassandra reached out towards Fitz and Sam.

The mad woman reached out and grabbed Sam around the head. "You'll do as an example." She yanked, and Sam's head was torn from its shoulders, spraying Fitz with droplets of silver metal. The body crashed to the ground in a stream of liquid metal, where it slowly solidified once more into a small misshapen, silver lump. The woman stood there, as Fitz turned round and bolted. No way was he having his head ripped off! When he got to the Doctor, he turned to see Cassandra's puppet body running towards the polar aurorae with the macro-particle. "Doc! Is Sam going to be alright?" He helped the Doctor to his feet. "Yes Fitz, she'll be fine. Although that would have been very unpleasant for her." Around them, the wind was diminishing, as the black traceries of the new Universe started to intertwine with the magnetic field high above them. "Come on Fitz, we need to get there before her." With that, the Doctor sped off at full speed. "Wait for me!" Shouted Fitz, as he accelerated after him.

The tourist centre was a large ring structure floating on a traction bed that helped it crawl like a gigantic slug over the landscape, as it followed the natural drifting movement of the magnetic pole. The structure was huge, but Fitz really didn't have a chance to admire it as he screeched to a halt next to the Doctor. "Fitz, I need you to hold her off for five minutes. I need to do some work on the magnetic locks inside the building." Fitz gave him another one of his stock store of "Whatever you say Doc, just don't expect me to understand what you're talking about." Nods. "If she starts getting nasty, do whatever you have to, but try not to get your head torn off like Sam. Alright?" Fitz nodded. "Don't worry Doc. My head's staying firmly where it is." The Doctor patted him one the back. "Good show. I'll whistle when I'm done. I have an idea that just might work."


	6. Whoops. There goes the Universe! (Or THE...

Fitz decided the best plan of attack would probably be surprise, he found the nearest door to hide behind, and added a table leg to his armoury. One of the most basic human instincts, when in trouble find a big stick and hit whatever's causing the problem until it went away or died. If you were lucky, it died and you got live to bash something else over the head. He peered out through the glass of the centre's front door, which wasn't really giving him that much of a surprise element as it was mainly just frosted glass. Over to the right, the truck was bouncing its way towards him. That was good, as it was full of armed soldiers. The bad thing was coming right for him, and he liked the look of it less and less as it approached. If you just looked at her, it wasn't so bad. She was just a tiny figure running towards him pushing a glowing ball ahead of her. That; he could cope with quite easily. What was really disturbing him, was the shadowy figure towering over her. It was like you could only see the edges of a glass figure. Everything else was completely transparent except for a slight waviness like a heat haze over a hot tin roof during the summer. It looked like a special effect from a movie Sam had taken him to see back on Earth during the early nineties. The shape of it implied arms, legs, possibly stubby wings and far too many tentacles on something that was obviously not an Octopus. And the towering wasn't just towering. The thing was half a mile away, and already looked half a mile high. He looked at his broken table leg, and sighed. "I hope this doesn't hurt too much."

Neelam, and his motley crew of freedom fighters, presidential bodyguards and one terrified dictator, were once more having their bones shaken loose by what was left of the trucks suspension. The fabric roof had been torn off by the earlier wind coming from the thing Cassandra, he shook his head; no not Cassie, had been holding. Most of the suspension was shot, the front engine cowling had been ripped off and the radiator was beginning to overheat. Not to mention, both headlights were out and it was getting dark. He glanced out of his window, to see the shadow of something very, very big and nasty, lumbering towards the tourist centre. He returned his attention to driving a damaged truck full of armed soldiers in the dark, without headlights, and discovered that the brakes weren't working. He took a pointless glance at the speedo, but the needle was wobbling around erratically in the smashed display. It felt like he was doing about fifty, but he could just as easily be doing ninety. His comm. pinged, and Jaxxson's voice came in on a private channel. "I know that look. What's wrong?" Neelam stole a glance back at his old friend. "The brakes are out, and we're going way to fast to stop with the gears." The centre was looming in the windscreen. Neelam asked his suit computer for a public channel. "Listen up! Everyone bail out now, the brakes are dead. I'm going to pull this truck around and try and run that thing down. Everyone out now!" Behind him there was a scuffle, as he wrenched the steering wheel around. Everybody started leaping from the truck, letting their combat armour lock them into a protected foetal position as they struck the ground. "God, just let us stop this thing." He whispered, forgetting that his comm. Channel was still open. "Which God?" Said a voice behind him, just before he felt himself getting thrown out through the ripped off door. Thompson grabbed the wheel of the truck, and jammed his foot down on the accelerator. "This is my world!!" He screamed. "Mine! Mine!" Neelam got up as his armour released him from an emergency crash position. Over the comm. Thompson was screaming insanely at the monster as he cannoned into Cassandra. There was a bright flash; and the surrounding landscape was lit up by the ensuing fireball as it reached high into the darkening evening sky. 

Neelam watched the flames turn to black smoke, as they engulfed Cassandra and her attendant God. He carried on watching. Something in the back of his mind knew that it wasn't going to be as easy as crashing a truck into Cassandra. Simply killing her to cut off the creatures' link to this Universe was way too simple. The thing thought it was a God. Of course it had thought of this. He unclipped his fusion plasma rifle from its holding pack on his back, and started the power cell pumping Helium3 from the magazine into the miniature fusion chamber. The rifle made a hissing noise, and then it started emitting a high-pitched whine as the chamber ignited. "Jaxxson, get over to the visitor centre. Find the Doctor. I'm going to try and slow her down." The smoke was clearing, and as he had expected Cassandra was still running towards the centre. Behind her the creature's crystal-glass like outline was growing stronger and more distinct by the moment. "Cassandra! Stop where you are!" As one, Cassandra and the creature turned to face him. It was simply an acknowledgment of his presence there, nothing more. Neelam calmly raised his rifle, and fired the quivering weapon. A solid beam of brilliant white plasma left the tip of the rifle and bridged the gap between them in an instant. He missed. For a moment, it didn't register. He had her lined up in the rifle's crosshairs. His armour's targeting computer had placed the crosshair over her heart. The beam should have vaporised her heart and cauterised the wound in its twenty-five thousand degree heat. Instead the beam had lanced off at a tangent, and then spiralled up into the atmosphere. He fired again, and the same thing happened again. "Damn!" He started running towards her.

Fitz had a dilemma. The rest of the soldiers had arrived, armed to the teeth with futuristic weapons of all kinds. His table leg was feeling ever more inadequate as they pulled evil looking plasma rifles from their backs. Behind them, one soldier was running towards the woman after firing his weapon at her. It hadn't appeared to be too accurate, as the lightning white beam had shot off into the air making beautiful spiralling shapes before winking out high above them. The huge, nasty, monster calmly bent down and flicked him away from the woman. The figure went flying, and landed in a ball close by. One of the soldiers ran across to him, and picked the prone body up from the floor. "We can't beat this thing, and there's something wrong with the weapons." Came a voice, hissing with pain, over the nearest soldier's radio. "Anyone who can close enough needs to kill Cassandra at point-blank range. I want you all to fan out and attack. That thing can't stop everyone from getting through." There was a loud wheezing. "Does anyone know where the Doctor is?" Fitz went over to the wounded man. He removed his helmet, as Fitz approached. "You." He wheezed. "Where's the Doctor?" Fitz turned his head, and glanced back at the centre. "He's inside somewhere, doing stuff. He said he had an idea, and to give him five minutes." Behind him, the soldiers had fanned out and were running at full speed towards Cassandra. The creature reached down and picked up the glittering sphere, thrusting it forward as the old God walked towards the glowing aurora. "THIS UNIVERSE IS AT AN END. WITNESS THE BIRTH OF THE NEW AS YOU EXPERIENCE THE DEATH OF THE OLD. I COMPLETE THIS CYCLE AND START ANEW WITH THE DESIGNS OF THAT WHICH HAS GONE BEFORE." At its feet, the soldiers skidded to a halt as Cassandra collapsed into a heap. Released from the monsters control, the exertions of running for two miles caught up with her. Fitz looked down at his table leg and threw his it at the monster, just for effect. "There goes the Universe." He sighed, craning his neck as he joined everyone else in looking upwards. High above them all, the stars began to wink out as the sky turned from light purple to black and the Universe finally went dark.

The Doctor sucked his fingers, as more sparks leapt out of the control panel he'd pulled the back off of. He worked quietly and efficiently, pulling wires and re-routing the cables, and controls, of what was basically a three-story tokomak. Perched precariously on top of a coffee mug was his small notebook, with the calculations he'd made earlier. He blew on his burnt fingers, and scratched out an equation. "Hmm… Thought that was the wrong way around." He turned it upside down. "Ah." His head disappeared back inside the machine he had open. There were more sparks, and the smell of singed plastic wafted across the room, mingling with the vast amounts of ozone being generated by hastily patched power lines and connectors. He backed out of the machine, wiping his hands down his jacket leaving silver streaks behind. He walked back to the main computer, and started up his hastily written program. "Cross your fingers, this should actually work." He pressed the enter key, and started the program. 

Outside, the sky had turned completely black. No light from any stars could be seen. It was if they had never existed. Fitz sat down, and was trying to wonder what oblivion was going to be like. The monster was howling its victory, and shouting in a strange language that the TARDIS translator obviously wasn't familiar with. Just as well, he thought. Suddenly he felt a shiver run down his spine, as an intense vibration started rattling his body. The others were looking around as well, as behind them the visitor centre started emitting a high-pitched squealing noise. The ancient God suddenly stopped shouting and starting screaming in pain. The main doors crashed open, and a dishevelled Doctor hurtled out and across the green. "Run! The whole thing is going to implode!" Everyone watched, as the Doctor disappeared off towards the horizon. Around Fitz, the others were swearing and dumping whatever they had to hand and starting to run as fast as their powered armour would let them. Neelam looked up at his friend. "Get Cassandra out of here." He hissed. Jaxxson nodded resolutely, and sped towards the prone body, scooping it up in a single smooth movement and following the others. Fitz looked down. "Come on." He lifted Neelams body into his arms, armour and all. "Can't leave you here now can I?" Neelam looked mildly surprised at being lifted up by what appeared to be a normal civilian, and even more surprised at the amount of speed Fitz achieved as they raced away.

Behind them the visitors' centre was rippling with energy. In the geo-magnetic well above it, the event horizon surrounding the macro-particle started to unwind, whipping backwards and forwards revealing its nature as a string. At the edge of the centre, the old God was tearing into the building, ripping out huge chunks of concrete that were lifted up into the maelstrom forming above it. Released from its bindings the strange-matter particle shone with a strange coloured light. The dark traceries that were being emitted from it gradually started to arc around, enveloping the brilliant pinprick, the God and the visitors centre. 

The Doctor slowed to a stop, and turned around. Half a mile away the huge black sphere glowed with its unearthly light and started shrinking. The other joined him, and turned to watch tornadoes develop around the shrinking object, lifting up the earth in a shower of boulders and rock. Beneath it, the ground split and molten lava was sucked into the departing particle. The object gradually shrank too small to be seen, and winked out. Silence descended upon the group. Fitz sidled up to the Doctor. "Wow! What did you do?" Above them the stars shone, as if nothing had happened. The Doctor looked up, and smiled. "That was close." He looked back down at the devastation. The visitor's centre had disappeared, replaced by a pinnacle of cooling rock. Debris was still raining down around it, splashing into pools of lava that remained. "I introduced an interference pattern into the particles information output." Fitz sighed. He should have known better. The Doctor patted him on the back. "I reprogrammed it with a recursive temporal loop. Basically it wrapped itself up in its own little Universe, and fortunately our friend went with it." He looked around at the ragtag group of soldiers. "I fancy a cup of tea." He waggled his eyebrows knowingly. Fitz grinned. He couldn't believe this guy. He saves the Universe, and all he fancies afterwards is a cup of tea. Typical. "Whatever you say Doctor. Whatever you say." He stole another glance up into the clear night sky as they walked away. High above, the planets natural aurora glowed softly, adding subtle colours to the twinkling ice-chip stars.


End file.
